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Showing posts from 2019

Merry Christmas!

 Merry Christmas! We did Christmas photos early in December, and I'm so glad we did because this season has been BUSY! Especially this past week which involved a water leak in our house and no hot water for the past three days, three kids with the flu, and of course Christmas! Luckily the illnesses didn't strike until the day after Christmas, so we all got to enjoy presents and Christmas Dinner and family time. It was a great day! Hope ya'll's holidays are awesome! Love from Angela and the fam! The best of the almost 200 photos I took that day: 

What I'm Reading/Watching/Playing: November

What I'm Reading Binti by Nnedi Okorafor This novella was AMAZING and well deserving of it's Nebula/Hugo wins! More happened in the first 30 pages of this book than in the entireity of some of the Wheel of Time books. (Joking! Kinda...) I'm not going to give too much away, it's super short and I recommend you just read it, but the culture, the aliens, and the technology were all very cool and interesting twists on the normal sci-fi experience. Read it! Binti: Home by Nnedi Okorafor This one was as terrible as the first one was good. I was cringing through the entire thing and wondering why on Earth the author was dragging us through so much pointless teen angst. Even the sci-fi elements that were so cool and interesting in the first book became boringly over explained in this one. Why???? I pushed through in the hope that the third one would be better, and because the first one was so good, and because it was so short. Binti: The Night Masquerade by Nnedi Okora...

What I'm Reading, Watching, Playing: October

This is so late, I know. But I'm posting what I have anyway because...why not? :) What I'm Reading Empress of Forever  by Max Gladstone Between the existential panic attacks and the abstract nature of the universe and the main character not jibing with me...I did not like this one! That's not to say it wasn't a good book. It had plenty of great parts and some really interesting characters. I especially liked Songe and her whole arc. I also really enjoyed the writing, the descriptions were very abstract and different from most sci-fi. It was the very opposite of hard sci-fi to the point of being almost whimsical. However,s those abstract descriptions did sometimes make the story hard to follow and the places difficult for me to imagine. I also dislike the main character, Viv, and was annoyed when the author described her in ways that didn't match her actions or actual personality in the story. In fact, most of her backstory didn't seem to match up with t...

Sailor Moon Toddler Tutu & Costume

Rosemary as Sailor Moon!!!! 😍😍😍 So originally I was going to just make a cute tutu for her because I have been so busy this fall, but the more I started making the more excited and extra I got, and I couldn't stop and before I knew it I had made this extremely intricate and accurate Sailor Moon costume for my 2 year old who doesn't even know who Sailor Moon is. I mean, I showed her the intro song from the old Sailor Moon R series and she loved that, but she's still in the Sesame Street and Daniel Tiger viewing age...but I'm glad I did it! It reminds me how much I miss making legit cosplays and costumes and stuff. Someday, someday. My kids won't always have me at a -14.  The outfit is made from a plain white gerber onesie with the sailor collar (blue broadcloth and white ribbon) sewed only onto the back edge. In the front it velcroes together and onto the onesie. This is because toddler heads are really big and I wouldn't be able to ge...

Sailor Jupiter's School Uniform Doll Outfit

Ya'll...I am so behind on posting! I meant this to go up a month ago! And I haven't finished writing up any of the Halloween Costumes! And I also haven't finished writing my October watching/reading/playing post! And I have three baby quilts and some renfair stuff to finish this month! I'm also working on a video that John and I made! I'm excited, but definitely a little swamped right now!  So anyway.... I'm a big Sailor Moon fan and I have been since I was a little girl! My first exposure to it was actually the Manga, which I saw at a local Austin Comic Book Shop when accompanying my dad and uncle on their monthly comics and cards shopping trips. It was hanging in on a rack beside our usual Ninja Turtles and Duck Tales reads, but it had GIRL super heroes with long hair and cute dresses! I bought it and was hooked, and when the show aired in the late 90's in the U.S., I ate that up too! I even made a Sailor Jupiter outfit for myself back in college wi...

Happy Halloween!

I did a lot of sewing and costume crafting this month! Details to come and better pictures, but I have to get ready for trick-or-treating tonight!

What I'm Reading, Playing, Watching: September

WOW this is late! I usually type this throughout the month as I read/play/watch, and then add pics and formatting at the end and post it, but October is kicking my butt! I have about 40 hours of sewing to do in the next few weeks and only about 10 free hours in which to sew...Halloween is like the Nanowrimo of the Costuming World! Luckily this means I will have lots of cool little projects to show off in the coming month, as I finish and take pics and write the posts for them...but it means that my regular posting schedule is thrown way out of whack! Anyway, I guess this is a cliff notes version of my September Reading/Watching/Playing post! What I'm reading The Red Threads of Fortune by JY Yang This was terrible. It had so much potential, but it didn't click with me. The prose was nice enough, but not very explicit (I didn't realize that the "raptors" she was using as scouts were actual dinosaurs rather than unspecified birds of prey until reading a review-...

Cats Bats and Jacks Halloween Spider Web Quilt

I bought this "Cats Bats and Jacks" Halloween Layer Cake by Riley Blake last year and turned it into a quick top last fall, and this year as part of my unfinished projects goals I pulled it out and finished it for this Halloween!  Since I had a simply pieced front, I wanted the quilting to be more intricate, so I quilted it in a spider-web design. I used black thread on the top and white thread in the bottom so that it would show up on each side better. The back is a plain black fleece that I had in my stash and the binding is satin blanket binding from Joann's.  I think it turned out great! The quilting was tricky since I did it on my home machine, and I couldn't get my walking foot to work so I used a regular quarter inch foot. I also had a scare with my machine where some spare bobbin thread got tangled in the hand wheel on the side...it was bad. I had to get my screwdrivers and start taking things apart, but I managed to fix it! Whew! Lesson learne...

My Thoughts on Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time

I have a lot to say about this series, and considering that the books total over 4 million words, it makes sense! I've already discussed the individual books in many of my previous monthly "reading watching playing" posts, but I wanted to do an in depth review where I could discuss my thoughts on the series as a whole.  First, a spoiler free review: I really liked this series! I'd give it, on a whole, an 8/10 overall as a fantasy series. It is one of the best I've read for two reasons: The characters and the world. Every character (and there are a lot!)  is complex, flawed, and unique, but most impressively, grows, changes, and develops substantially over the course of the series.  The second reason is the world: it is so vivid and rich that if you tell me a character is from Ebou Dar I can tell you what they are wearing and the meaning behind it, if she is from Tarabon I know she wears her hair tiny beaded braids and has a thick accent. Even the cities have ...

Beach Trip: Padre Island 2019

We went to the beach last week!  There were sunsets and boogie boards... Waves and wipeouts... There was lots of laying in the shade... We walked barefoot on the beach and caught ghost crabs...  I took a million great pictures, but this motion capture video sums up what I spent most of the trip doing:

What I'm Reading, Watching, Playing: August

What I'm Playing  Edge of Darkness This kickstarter game combines elements of deck building and card-crafting with worker placement and monster fighting. It's complicated, has a ton of pieces, and a strong city-factions theme. The box is massive, the rulebook long, and gameplay is medium complex. I'll say it's not exactly my cup of tea, but if I took the time to learn it and get really good at it, it could be really fun. John and Diana really liked it, Gunnar liked it okay, and I was just meh about it. But then, I really hate learning new games and the factions theme isn't my think and I pretty much hate deck building haha. What I'm Reading Ancillary Mercy by Ann Leckie This one wasn't as exciting as the first book in this series, which I reviewed last month for a lot of reasons. First, there was a lot of explanation of things that happened in the first book which while interesting didn't move things along very much There also wasn...

Anne of Green Gables Doll Dress

I love Anne of Green Gables and have been wanting to make a doll outfit like this for a while! I used the " Carrots " pattern by Luminaria Designs from Pixie Faire  which was very easy and straightforward. I used some quilting cotton from Joann's for for the dress, a fat quarter for the pinafore, and I bought the hat off of Amazon and decorated it with some spare ribbon from my stash. The only thing I did that  I hadn't done before was the Peter Pan collar, which turned out really cute! I must have done something wrong because it doesn't lay totally flat, even after vigorous ironing. I know about understitching but I don't really understand it very well, so I think I must have done it wrong. Oops. The back has some false buttons sewed over the velcro closure.  (I seriously hate making button holes!) I also cheated a little bit and used the bloomers that I made previously for the prairie girl dresses, since you can't see them. I don't need 5 pai...